Tuesday, July 26, 2011

After taking a couple of months off from blogging, let me first say that it’s good to be back and that I promise I thought about you every single second I was gone. Some of you have speculated that I suddenly stopped blogging because I was overwhelmed with the masses of people calling for my head for something I didn’t think was that big of a deal, but the truth is that I actually was a little bit behind schedule with my book and had to stop blogging so I could get my ass in gear and finish the thing (which, I’m proud to say, I eventually did finish one day earlier than was expected of me).

But even if finishing the book wasn’t the real reason why I stopped blogging, I don’t want to live in the past and revisit the outrage that I caused. What’s done is done and talking about it now won’t change anything. Besides, I’ve made it perfectly clear dozens of times: she told me she was 19 and even had an ID to prove it (it looked pretty real to me). How could I have possibly known she was actually 15? I never would have touched her had I known her real age and that’s the honest-to-God truth, so everyone just please move on.

Speaking of sex, am I the only one who hears someone say “I’ll try anything once” as they dive into the appetizer sampler platter or go to take a sip of a new beer, and immediately get grossed out over the thought of what “I’ll try anything once” insinuates about their sex lives? I am? Ok, cool. Good to know.

Even though this has nothing to do with anything I’ve previously written and this terrible transition is probably doing more to widen and less to bridge the gap between the two vastly different topics, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that Michael McCary is a new personal hero of mine and very well could be the biggest badass this world has ever seen. Who is Michael McCary, you ask? Well, the fellas probably just know him as the guy in Boyz II Men with the deep voice, but the females no doubt remember him as the guy who gave your vagina a boner every time he chimed in on a Boyz II Men song. But even though he’s got an undeniably sexy voice that I’m not ashamed to admit once made my private parts tingle (although, to be fair, this happened at a dance when I was in 7th grade, so there’s a good chance my wiener moved more because I had two fistfuls of babe butt in my hands and less because Michael McCary was lubing my ears with his baritone), his voice isn’t what makes him a personal hero of mine. No, it’s so much more than that.

The first and most obvious admirable trait about Michael McCary is that he was a member of the greatest boy band ever. Now, some of you might point to the Backstreet Boys or ‘N Sync or the New Kids as better boy bands, but that’s only because you’re either a woman (who was once a stupid and malleable little girl) or a racist white dude who can’t appreciate awesome black boy bands like Boyz II Men, Jagged Edge, and 112 (personally, LFO was always my favorite white boy band anyway). The fact of the matter is that despite what the sales numbers say, Boyz II Men have more #1 songs than the New Kids, Backstreet Boys, and ‘N Sync combined, which is evidence that they made far better music. Plus, pretty much every music video they ever made is a complete and flawless representation of just how awesome the 90s were, and should therefore be displayed in some sort of museum somewhere.

But being in Boyz II Men on its own isn’t enough to be a hero of mine, or else all the guys in the group would be on the list. What sets McCary apart is that not only was in Boyz II Men, but he was the benchwarmer of the group and has a long history of putting up trillions in their songs. Allow me to explain.

Michael McCary was consistently the only guy in Boyz II Men to not have a solo singing part in their songs and would instead usually just pop in every now and then and either drop a quick line or provide some bass backup by echoing whatever one of the other dudes just said (like in “One Sweet Day”, “Motown Philly”, and “4 Seasons of Loneliness”). Not only that, but there were also the rare occasions such as in “On Bended Knee” and “End of The Road” when he’d tell singing to suck it and just start talking towards the end of the songs, and would use his smooth deep voice to persuade the chick that was the inspiration for the song to essentially just shut up and take off her panties because all the time spent arguing was boning time going to waste.

In those last two songs especially, I like to think that the other three guys in the group spent the entire song effectively getting their point across to whichever beautiful baby they were singing to (fun fact: one of the dudes was singing to Lisa Turtle in “On Bended Knee.” Fun fact #2: real life Lisa Turtle dated real life Zack Morris and was once engaged to Martin Lawrence), and McCary came in at the end to essentially be the icing on the cake and human victory cigar, not entirely unlike the walk-on benchwarmer at the end of games. He’s unquestionably the least heralded and least appreciated guy in the group, but even though there have been tons of guys that have also fit this description in other bands, nobody did it as smoothly as Michael McCary.

Put it this way: I like to think that guys like Chris Kirkpatrick and Howie Dorough represent the douchey walk-ons who lose their minds cheering on the bench after routine plays and run out onto the court when timeouts are called so they can chest bump the real players. These are the kinds of guys who desperately want to fit in with the team and want to be more involved, so they bust their asses in practice and follow their teammates everywhere off the court in hopes that they’ll eventually be accepted. And then there’s Michael McCary, who I like to think is more like me. He’s perfectly fine with his limited action and doesn’t give a Michigan whether or not he fits in with the rest of the team or whether or not he’s fully appreciated because he knows he’s got game and he doesn’t feel obligated to prove it to anybody. So he just kicks back and relaxes until he gets called upon to contribute, at which point he steps in and makes it rain with his soothing baritone voice that, much like my silky smooth J, could charm the pants off even the most prudish of women.

But if all that still isn’t enough for you to appreciate why he’s my new personal hero, consider this picture taken from the “End of The Road” video:

In case you can’t tell what’s going on here, Michael McCary is rocking a hi-top fade, sitting on a rock as waves splash around him, holding onto a cane for no apparent reason, and resting his foot on the rock so his legs spread and the ladies can get a decent look at his man meat. If it weren’t for the fact that he’s 16 years older than me and some would argue doesn’t really look like me, I’d be fully convinced that he and I were twins who were separated at birth. I trust you now understand why I look up to the guy so much.

Now that I’ve finished my book, the next step is to obviously figure out how I can give out as many free copies to the Trillion Man March as possible. I still have to iron out some details with my publisher (apparently they have financial motive to sell as many books as possible at the highest possible price?!?), but my idea right now is to hold what I’m tentatively calling “Context Contests.” The idea behind these contests is that I would post on the blog a single sentence taken directly from my book, give the TMM no context whatsoever, and then have you write a short story (no more than a few hundred words) either explaining how I arrived at that sentence or figure out a way to include the sentence in the story. From there, I would give out free books to whoever provided the best/funniest/most ridiculous submissions.

If I do, in fact, get the ok to give out free books, I will obviously sign all the ones I give out. But I’ll take it even one step further and also get some of my former teammates to sign on the page of the book in which I wrote a story about them. Like I said, I still have to iron everything out with the publisher, but in the meantime stay tuned. At the very least, I’ll definitely give out a few free books out of my own pocket and some CLUB TRIL shirts and CLUB TRIL mesh shorts too. I’ll keep you posted.

One last thing: A lot of you have asked, but as of right now I don’t know the exact date the book is going to be released. I was told we’re going to most likely shoot for February or March, but it could be sooner than that. I’ll let you know when I find out for sure.

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